Strength Recovery Services uses several holistic and evidence-based approaches to help adults address substance use disorders, mental health conditions, and co-occurring concerns. Dialectical behavior therapy, commonly called DBT, is one evidence-based approach that helps you manage difficult emotions, tolerate distress, strengthen relationships, and respond to challenging situations in healthier ways.
Dialectical behavior therapy for addiction can be particularly helpful when strong emotions, stress, impulsive behavior, or relationship problems contribute to alcohol or drug use. DBT can also support treatment for mental health concerns involving:
When substance use and mental health conditions occur together, DBT may be incorporated into integrated treatment that addresses both at the same time.
Dialectical behavior therapy is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy that combines two important ideas: accepting your present experience and working toward meaningful change.
That balance is at the heart of DBT. You can acknowledge that your emotions and experiences are real while also recognizing that certain behaviors or coping strategies may no longer be helping you.
DBT was originally developed for people who experience intense emotions and difficulty regulating them. Today, its principles and skills are used more broadly in behavioral health treatment, including care for substance use disorders and several mental health concerns.
Rather than focusing only on what you think, DBT places strong emphasis on what you do when emotions become difficult to manage. Therapy can help you slow down, recognize what is happening, and choose a response that better supports your recovery and long-term goals.
DBT focuses on developing practical skills you can use when emotions, cravings, conflict, or stressful situations become difficult to manage.
For example, you may experience an argument, rejection, overwhelming anxiety, or another stressful event and feel an immediate urge to escape the discomfort. In the past, that response might have involved alcohol, drugs, isolation, anger, impulsive behavior, or another coping strategy that brought short-term relief but created additional problems.
DBT helps you create more space between the emotion and the response.
The approach generally emphasizes four core skill areas:
These skills aren’t meant to erase difficult emotions. Instead, they can help you respond to those emotions without automatically returning to behaviors that interfere with your health or recovery.
Substance use can become a way of escaping emotions that feel overwhelming or difficult to tolerate. Alcohol or drugs may temporarily provide relief from anxiety, anger, sadness, trauma-related distress, loneliness, or relationship conflict.
DBT for addiction focuses on helping you manage those experiences without relying on substances as your primary coping strategy.
Treatment may help you recognize situations that increase cravings, understand emotional triggers, and practice healthier ways to tolerate discomfort. Mindfulness can help you notice an urge without immediately acting on it, while distress tolerance skills can provide alternatives when cravings or difficult emotions become intense.
DBT can also help address impulsive decisions, relationship conflict, and emotional reactions that may increase the risk of returning to substance use.
At Strength Recovery Services, DBT may be incorporated into broader addiction treatment that helps you:
We provide structured addiction treatment through outpatient programming in Weymouth.
DBT can also support people who struggle with strong emotions, distress, relationship difficulties, or patterns of behavior that interfere with everyday life.
You may understand logically how you want to respond to a situation but find that intense emotions take over in the moment. DBT can help you become more aware of those reactions and develop skills for managing them before they lead to choices you later regret.
DBT may be incorporated into treatment for mental health concerns such as:
Strength Recovery Services provides mental health treatment for adults experiencing a variety of emotional and behavioral concerns. Our outpatient programs incorporate emotional regulation, mindfulness, coping skill development, individual therapy, and group therapy.
Substance use and mental health symptoms can reinforce one another. You may use alcohol or drugs to escape strong emotions, anxiety, depression, trauma-related distress, or relationship problems, while continued substance use can make those same concerns harder to manage.
Co-occurring disorders require dedicated dual diagnosis treatment. DBT can help you develop skills for managing emotions, tolerating distress, and responding to triggers without relying on substances or other harmful coping behaviors.
The focus of DBT depends on your individual needs, symptoms, and recovery goals.
DBT may help you work on:
DBT may be combined with other forms of therapy when a broader approach can better support what you’re going through. As you build new skills, gain confidence, and learn more about what helps you feel steady, your treatment plan can grow and change with you. The goal is to make sure your care continues to feel useful, supportive, and connected to where you are in recovery.
Strength Recovery Services provides DBT and other therapies within structured outpatient treatment programs. The appropriate level of care depends on your individual treatment needs and recovery goals.
Both programs allow you to live at home while receiving structured treatment. Strength Recovery Services incorporates individual therapy, group therapy, emotional regulation, mindfulness, coping skill development, relapse prevention, and other therapeutic supports into its current programming.
You don’t need to decide what program or form of therapy is right for you before reaching out. As part of the initial intake assessment, the team can help determine what level of care and combination of therapeutic approaches best fit your needs.
Choosing treatment close to home can make it easier to attend consistently, stay engaged, and maintain progress in recovery. Strength Recovery Services serves adults from Weymouth and nearby South Shore communities such as Quincy, Braintree, Hingham, Randolph, and Milton, as well as Norfolk County and surrounding areas throughout Massachusetts.
Strength Recovery Services is located at 1221 Main Street, Weymouth, MA 02190.
Strong emotions and difficult situations don’t have to control what happens next. DBT can help you develop practical skills for managing distress, responding to emotions more effectively, strengthening relationships, and making choices that support your recovery.
Strength Recovery Services offers DBT for addiction, mental health conditions, and co-occurring disorders as part of personalized PHP and IOP treatment in Weymouth, MA.
Call (339) 201-3448 or contact us online to learn more about how DBT can fit into your treatment and recovery options.
